Fair Grounds Newsletter from Cafe Campesino

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Springing Forward with Fair Trade
Newsletter Special: Guatemala Full City
Challenges at Santa Anita by Bill Harris
Community Caravan
Quote of the Month
Past Issues of Fair Grounds

Ah spring! That all too brief period between the gray days of winter and the heat and humidity of a Georgia summer. After the challenges of the March tornado, the Café Campesino staff is looking forward to the rebirth this sweet season offers. But we're not the only community that is rebounding from acts of nature. In this issue of Fair Grounds, Bill Harris talks about his recent visit to Guatemala's Santa Anita cooperative, recovering from two years of poor harvests following 2005's Hurricane Stan. We've also got a Community Caravan update on our spring activities plus a recipe for cappuccino biscotti. Kick back for a few minutes with a mug of your favorite Fair Trade brew and read on...

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This month, we’re offering readers of Fair Grounds a discount on the truly excellent coffee produced by our friends at Santa Anita and roasted to a Full City by Chef Lee. Order any size bag (1, 2, and/or 5 pound) of our Guatemala Full City and get 10% off of the regular listed retail price. Be sure to enter promotional code stanita when prompted at check out or let us know if you call in your order.

Just a reminder... green beans are available for home roasters. Did you know that our Fair Trade, organic green coffee beans are available in 2 and 4 pound bags? In the next few weeks they’ll be available for purchase online; in the meantime though, if you want to place an order, give us a call!

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by Bill Harris

This is the time of year when the members of Cooperative Coffees head out to visit with producer partners throughout Latin America. These are busy months throughout the region that offer a unique opportunity for us to see how our producer partners prepare their coffee for export and to discuss face to face with them our collaboration in the process. For the last three weeks, Bill Harris, founder and co-owner of Café Campesino, has been traveling in Guatemala to meet with our friends at Santa Anita and four other coops with whom Cooperative Coffees works. The following trip report submitted by Bill captures the substance of what we and our producer partners discuss during our visits. It also sheds light on the many issues that we and our producer partners face on an ongoing basis.

As we turned off the cobblestone road into the familiar communal grounds, I tried to remember just how many times I had visited this idyllic cooperative. Is it the beautiful land — or the spirit of the members — or the proximity to Quetzaltenango? Not sure exactly why I end up here so often, but I suspect that I have visited this cooperative more than any other.

Popularly called "Santa Anita" or "Maya Civil," La Asociacion Civil Maya de Productores de Santa Anita, is an organic coffee and banana producer cooperative located on Guatemala's Pacific slope between Quetzaltenango and Coatepeque at an altitude of approximately 3,500 meters. The association at Santa Anita is made up of 32 families of ex-combatants from the 36 year Guatemala civil war. With the signing of the Peace Accords in 1996 the association was able to purchase an abandoned plantation in February of 1998. Approximately 65% of the 130-acre holding is in coffee and banana production — the remaining acres are either too steep for any type of cultivation or have been left purposely in a natural state to conserve the existing ecology.

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Congrats to our own Luz Figueroa and her fellow Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) team members at Georgia Southwestern University (GSW)! Last week, Luz’s team beat out 39 other teams from all over the Southeast to win the annual regional SIFE competition in Atlanta. SIFE team members like Luz and her colleagues at GSW leverage their personal educational experiences, the expertise of their faculty advisors, the support of their local business advisory boards, and the resources of their institutions to implement programs that create real economic opportunities for members of their communities. The effectiveness of their programs is judged at competitions like the regional in Atlanta where Luz and her team emerged victorious! At competition, SIFE teams present the results of their educational outreach projects and compete to determine which team was most successful at creating economic opportunity for others. Luz and her SIFE team along with the other league winners will compete at the nationals in Dallas, Texas in early May. Good luck Luz and the rest of the GSW SIFE team!

Last Saturday (April 7th) Tripp, Bill, and Café Campesino friend and supporter Treva Wetherell braved some serious cold weather to serve up Café Campesino coffee and talk Fair Trade at the inaugural City Market on the Green in Macon, Georgia. We’re truly grateful to Naomi Davis, Farm Manager of Davis Farms, Jill Shealy and Bob Burns of Udan Farm, and the rest of the folks there for including Café Campesino and for making us feel so welcome. For anyone within driving distance of Macon, we strongly recommend visiting City Market on the Green in Macon — the setting is beautiful, the people are wonderful and the market is a very comfortable venue showcasing local produce and other goods. Visit the Local Harvest website for more information. We’ll see you there!

Arts in the Park is on… despite the recent tornado’s best effort, it couldn’t stop the annual Arts in the Park celebration in Americus’ own Reese Park. On Saturday, April 21st, Café Campesino will join the rest of our most resilient community from 8 am to 3 pm for this annual event.

Café Campesino is thrilled to be part of the 14th annual BRAG Spring Tune-Up ride on April 27-29, 2007. This year, Bill and Café Campesino compadre Sheila Crowley will be on hand to serve up our famous BRAG Brew along with a number of other treats! BRAG Spring Tune-Up 2007 will begin and end at the Madison Community Park in Madison, Georgia. To learn more about BRAG Spring Tune-Up and other upcoming events, visit the BRAG website.

Mark your calendars and plan something special for World Fair Trade Day 2007! On May 12, join people around the world in celebrating World Fair Trade Day. This year’s theme is "Kids Need Fair Trade," offering opportunities for us to learn how fair trade improves the lives of children in producer countries — and for our children to participate in Fair Trade.

The Fair Trade Resource Network is the national coordinator of World Fair Trade Day in the US, with support from its partners in the fair trade community nationwide. To learn more about World Fair Trade Day and how you can join in the celebration, visit the Fair Trade Resource Network.

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"Spring is nature's way of saying, 'Let's party!'"

~ Robin Williams

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Fair Grounds is produced by:

Café Campesino
725 Spring Street
Americus, GA 31709

Contact Information:

Orders and General Information
Phone - 888.532.4728, 229.924.2468
Fax - 229.389.4814
http://www.cafecampesino.com
www.cafecampesino.com/store/index.php
info@cafecampesino.com

Staff:
Lee Harris
Tripp Pomeroy
Bill Harris
Maty de Barrios
Geoffrey Hennies
Stacey Johnson
Lily Royster
Luz Figueroa

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Contact Information:
Don Kruger
Lynn Nichols
Phone - 413.863.7752
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